


Species Alliance

by syphoner



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, One Shot, Original Character(s), Support Group, lgbtq+
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:24:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7165451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syphoner/pseuds/syphoner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick convinced Finnick to join him at a support group that he attends called Species Alliance. Headcanon AU where Finnick is struggling with gender dysphoria.</p><p>One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Species Alliance

**Author's Note:**

> This work is not related in any way to my 'Changing the World' series. This is just something I thought about and wrote for fun. 
> 
> Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome! :)

For all his shortcomings, and snarky attitude, and everything else that made Nick… well, _Nick_ , the red fox did have one really important thing going for him in Finnick’s books. And that wasn’t just the brain cells required to engineer their hustling.

 

Finnick hesitated at the door, and he had a feeling that Nick could feel his uncertainty and discomfort, because the younger fox put a paw on Finnick’s shoulder. “Hey, buddy, if you’re not ready for this, we don’t have to go tonight. It’s a big step, what you’re doing here. If you’re not ready for it, then we can go back and work back up to this point.”

 

The fennec fox sighed. “No, I got this, Nick.” His deep voice rumbled, out, softer than usual and lacking its usual bite. Finnick knew Nick was only trying to help. Normally he’d be flaring up at the possible insult to his pride and his manhood – _well that’s the problem, isn’t it?_ A voice inside of him asked. He ignored it – but tonight he didn’t really have the strength for his usual anger. It was taking everything he had to just keep putting one foot in front of the other tonight.

 

“Alright then,” the red fox replied, his usual grin sliding into place as the arms of his sunglasses clicked shut. “I’ll be around if you need anything. Other than that, just relax, enjoy the atmosphere, and remember that you don’t have to answer anyone’s questions if you don’t want to.” The small fox snorted and rolled his eyes, but still allowed Nick to go in first.

 

That was Nick’s redeeming quality, above all else: he understood Finnick, he was sympathetic, and most of the time, he _actually cared_. When he’d gotten Finn to open up about himself, finally (after a few too many drinks that Nick had warned him not to drink), he hadn’t been condescending, he hadn’t been judgemental, he had just listened and offered advice here and there. And then he’d helped Finnick get home safely.

 

And now here they were, two years later, at a Species Alliance support group. Species Alliance (SA) was an extension of the LGBTQ+ movement, which encompassed not only gender dysphoric and non-heterosexual mammals, but also species dysphoric and interspecies relationships, especially predator-prey relationships.

 

That was why Nick was here, besides supporting Finnick. After getting into that relationship with Flopsy the Copsy, he’d decided to start coming to these support meetings to help him deal with the negativity that surrounded predator-prey pairings. It seemed to be helping, but every once in a while Finnick would still catch Nick down in the dumps because he’d been called a ‘prey chaser’.

 

The room was in no way what Finnick expected. He’d been expecting one of those ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ type support group spaces, with little ornamentation and maybe a pot of coffee brewing in a corner. Instead, there were large strings of flags lining each wall like sport pennants, each flag a different representation of one of the sections of the Species Alliance Movement. A large table of refreshments, from coffee and tea to pop and fruit juice, plus donuts, muffins, cookies, and brownies, and even an elephant-sized coffee cake.

 

Finnick moved directly over to one of the tables that was set low to the ground and started grabbing food for the paper plate he’d grabbed. As he was doing so, an otter moved up beside him. She looked like she was barely out of high school. “Looks like you’re trying to feed an army,” she commented, helping herself to some clam cookies.

 

Finnick just grunted in response and started stuffing his face.

 

“I’m Jasmine,” the otter tried again. “Cross-species love.”

 

Finnick caught Nick’s eye over the otter’s shoulder. Nick gave him a thumbs-up and a wink, and turned back to the conversation he was having with Flash the sloth.

 

He sighed. “ ‘m Finnick,” he replied through a mouthful of donut. “I’m…”

 

 _Say it,_ the voice in his head was saying. _Say it. Go on, tell her! Let her in on the secret…_

 

“You don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable with it,” Jasmine interjected softly after a moment. “I’m still trying to get used to identifying with who I am, so I used it to help introduce myself just to get more comfortable. But if you don’t want to yet, that’s cool too.”

 

Finnick sighed. He swallowed what he had in his mouth then tried again. “I’m Finnick, and I’m…” _Better to say it to one person than to the whole room at once_. “I’m… g-gender dysphoric.” He braced himself for some kind of backlash at his admission, either mocking and laughter, or name-calling and slurs.

 

Instead, the otter just smiled. “Nice to meet you, Finnick.”

 

“N-nice to meet you too.” The fennec fox looked up at the otter and realized for the first time that this might actually be a place where he could find some _support_ instead of ridicule. It was a strange feeling.

**

The meeting was a slow process. Flash was the one hosting the meeting that night, and while he was certainly the fastest sloth that Finnick had ever come across, he was still a sloth.

 

“Hello… everyone…” Flash started. “My… name… is…. Flash. I… am… species………. dysphoric.”

 

“Hi Flash,” everyone else called in unison.

 

“To… start… our… meeting…… today, I… would… like… to… welcome……. some…… fresh……….. faces……… I… will… not… mention…. any names……. but……………… I… want… you… all… to feel… welcome……… here… with… us… at… Species… Alliance.”

 

“Flash likes to keep to the point at these meetings, and doesn’t really waste any words,” Jasmine whispered in Finn’s ear from the seat beside him. He’d decided to sit with her instead of with Nick, who had taken a seat right beside Flash at the head of the room. “He recognizes that he’s got some limitations because he’s physically a sloth, and so he doesn’t want to waste people’s time, especially if there’s people who are eager to share.

 

“Is… there… anyone… who would… like… to… speak… next…?” Flash asked.

 

A sheep across the room from Finnick raised her hoof tentatively. Flash smiled and waved for her to go ahead. “My-my name is Jessica,” she said. “And I’m in love with a rabbit.”

 

“Hi, Jessica,” everyone chorused again.

 

“My girlfriend a-and I are both from the M-Meadowlands,” she stuttered. “When-when my parents found out that I was dating a-a rabbit, they kicked me out.” A few murmurs of sympathy echoed around the room. Finnick thought he could feel for the ewe; his sister had gone through the same thing, back when being gay was illegal. “But-but after that, I managed to move up here to Savannah Central to live with my girlfriend. She’s here getting a degree at Zoo U, and we’re both working, a-and yeah.” The ewe looked embarrassed. “I guess I just wanted to spread some positivity.”

 

“Thank… you… for… sharing… Jessica. It… can… be………….. hard… sometimes… to get……. through… the challenges… that….. we face… but… it’s… important… to… remember…… that… not… every…… story… has… a sad… ending… We…. all… appreciate… your………….. positivity. Who…. else… would… like… to share…?”

 

And on it went from there. Mammals would raise their hands and say their names, then tell their stories. Some of them ended up being sad, and there were always murmurs of sympathy and words of support exchanged with the mammal by those nearest to them. But even with the sad stories, most of them ended up trying to end their stories on a more positive note. And then Flash would say something back, or one of the others would respond, and it would go from there.

 

Finally, when no one else wanted to speak, Flash called the meeting to a close, but said that he would be sticking around for a while before closing up if people wanted to hang around and chat with each other.

 

Once mammals started moving around again, Jasmine jumped down off her chair and tugged on Finnick’s paw. “Come on. There’s some people that I’d like you to meet, and Flash normally likes it better if we finish off the food so he doesn’t have to take it home. Something about it ruining his diet, or whatever.” Finnick let himself be dragged around, and with each new person he spoke with, it became easier and easier to talk about the reason he’d shown up.

**

Finnick stared down at the number written in sky-blue sharpie under his name on the paper nametag that he’d made at the front desk. It was Jasmine’s. She’d written it down before leaving.

 

Finnick and Nick were among the last two to leave, preferring to give Flash and Priscilla some alone time. Apparently the other sloth was just an ally, so she didn’t attend the meetings herself, but she helped support Flash when he went through it because he had a hard time doing these meetings on his own.

 

“So,” Nick said, leading by just a few steps as they walked back down the sidewalk in the direction of Finnick’s van. “You and Jasmine, huh?”

 

“Ah, shut it,” Finnick growled, but his heart wasn’t in it. The meeting had drained a lot of his anger, and he found it hard to get his voice to bite like it used to. Maybe that was a good thing.

 

“You know, she seems like a pretty decent match for you.” Nick continued on, heedless of Finnick’s comment. “She’s probably one of the first mammals that you haven’t snapped at when they commented on your eating habits, and you seemed to get along swimmingly.”

 

“She’s also like, half my age, man.”

 

“Nah, Jazzy’s the same age as Judy. She looks a lot younger than she is.”

 

“Dammit, Nick! Don’t go telling me that! It just makes it creepier that we’re both into people the same age!”

 

“Why? Because you’re a year older than I am?”

 

Finnick grumbled for a moment but didn’t reply.

 

“You gonna give her a call later on, then? Even if you’re not into her, she’s a good girl and she could use some more friends that she’s comfortable with.”

 

“And you know this because…?”

 

“She and I were talking for a little while, but then she wanted to move things along and I didn’t.”

 

“Surprise, surprise,” Finnick laughed. “Nick Wilde actually _does_ have a heart. And here I thought you were just as happy to get with one mammal as another?”

 

“I’m a bisexual fox attracted to a bunny, Finn. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m pansexual, nor that I’m going to go around seducing everything that breathes.” Nick took a deep breath. “Besides, at that point I wasn’t dating Judy.”

 

“Say what? Exactly how long have you been coming to these meetings?”

 

“I just started coming here a week or two before the Night Howler’s case,” Nick replied after a moment, all traces of his usual snark gone. “Flash told me about it when he started organizing it, and I finally ran out of excuses to stay away. And then I met Judy and realized that I _really_ needed to brush up on my own heart-to-heart stuff otherwise I’d be losing out on a potential life-mate.” He shrugged. “Been coming ever since.”

 

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then, “Thanks for convincing me to come along, Nick.”

 

Nick glanced down at the smaller mammal. “No problem, buddy.” He reached down and softly clapped Finnick on the back.

 

“By the way, if Flash is species dysphoric, what kind of animal does he identify with?”

 

“Not something you normally ask anyone but that person. Don’t want to out anyone, ya know?”

 

“Hey, you know I’d never say anything to him. Or to anyone else, for that matter. C’mon, man. As friends?”

 

Nick shrugged, then leaned in close and whispered, “A cheetah.” Then he straightened up, hands in his pockets, face his usual smug-grinned self, and a swagger back in his step. He turned his head slightly to wink at the dumbfounded fennec fox. “Flash, Flash, hundred-yard dash. Fastest sloth at the DMV, fastest sloth that you ever did see. What else would he identify with?”


End file.
